Recipe: Chicken with Green Onions

The holidays are over and back to what I call “survival cooking” – meals you can make for your family that can be prepared around all that driving to after school activities, and can be ready to eat whenever your family arrives home – usually arriving one-at-a-time.

The mild onion flavor and spice of the mustard makes this a delicious dish.

After you have made the chicken into cutlets – or you can buy chicken already in cutlets – this dish is quick to complete and very tasty. I like to buy my boneless breast on sale and then freeze it, but if I don’t have chicken in my freezer, sometimes cutlets are the same price as the breast so I buy the cutlets…that is a nice find!

Ingredients

2-3 lbs of boneless breast of chicken – cut into cutlets*

1 cup of flour

½ tsp of salt

¼-1/2 tsp of pepper

4 Tbsp of olive oil

4 Tbsp of butter

2 bunches of green onions (a bunch usually has 8 or so onions) – chopped

¼ - ½ cup of fresh chives – chopped

4 tbsp of lime juice

4 tbsp of brandy – optional, but I like the rich taste

¼ - ½ cup of lightly chopped fresh parsley

1 ½ tbsp of Dijon-style mustard

¾ cup of chicken broth

*Cut chicken into cutlets - I use boneless, breast of chicken. I cut the breast into cutlets by cutting the breast in half and then I cut the thicker half horizontally. Pound out the chicken to ¼ inch thickness by placing chicken between plastic wrap and use a mallet or rolling pin to pound it. The chicken can be prepared to this point up to a day in advance then put in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook. (My daughter made this for us last week and I prepared the chicken to this point the night before.) At this point, this dish cooks up fast.

In a shallow bowl, combine flour, salt and pepper. Dip chicken into flour mixture, completely coat the chicken.

Put a 2 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of butter in a skittle so it just barely covers the bottom of the skillet. Sauté the chicken on medium high for 2 minutes per side. It will probably take you at least 2 batches to sauté all the chicken. Use the additional 2 tbsp of olive and use 1 tbsp of butter if needed for the next batch of chicken. Test the chicken for doneness before taking from the skillet; cut into a piece of the cutlet. The chicken should be firm with no pink, but still moist. Try not to overcook. The chicken will continue to cook a little after you remove it from the skillet. Also remember reheating will cook the chicken a little as well. Put chicken on a plate and put aside.

Add the chives, green onions, lime juice, brandy, parsley and mustard to the skillet. Cook 30 seconds, stir constantly with a whisk, then whisk in broth and 2 tbsp of butter. Cook for about 1 minute. Turn the skillet down to simmer and add back the chicken and any juices on the plate. Cover the chicken with a little bit of the sauce. You can add more chicken broth if you want more sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes and then shut off the heat and serve.

To reheat in the microwave, put chicken on a microwavable dish and cut the piece in half (smaller pieces heat faster, but don’t over heat) and heat for 1 minute at ½ power. You want to heat the chicken without cooking it more, so use your power button on the microwave to turn down the power and heat for 30 seconds at a time so you don’t cook the chicken, just heat it. Heat for 1 minute at a time if you have more than one piece of chicken on the dish.